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Venturing off to Coronado Island, right outside of San Diego for MercTech 5 was an exciting adventure into the open architecture world of physical security. Various trends were identified, company announcements made, valuable networking with security companies was experienced as well as education and fun.

To kick off the conference, Matt Barnette, president, Mercury Security, announced that this year, the company will be formally converting to HID Global and they are always looking for new partners. (HID Global purchased Mercury Security, an OEM supplier of controllers for physical access control, in 2017.) Thus far, Mercury Security has kept their original logo, with the added phrase: “part of HID Global.”

Serra Luck, VP end user and consultant business, HID Global followed with three major trends in the physical access control market: the evolution of identity; service oriented and convergence of video, biometrics, access control, lighting and more to be controlled by a single device. Luck identified what she termed “BIMruption,” building information modeling in which a wholistic view of a building, including its vulnerabilities, can be seen before the structure is actually built. This enables the simulation of possible terror attacks, physical breaches, structural integrity and more so that security consultants, integrators and end-users can become even more proactive in preventing security-related issues.

Donna Chapman, consultant relations business development manager, ASSA ABLOY compared how she “talks up” security consultants to their partners. She likens it to doing taxes.

“Can I do taxes,” she asked the audience, hypothetically. To which she answered, “yes, but am I up-to-date on all the tax regulations…no, and that’s ‘ok’ unless I get audited. So, it’s easier and safer to have my taxes done by a professional…same with security consultants.”

The two full days of the conference continued on with valuable education as well as meetings with various Mercury Security partners, followed by amazing dinners and networking events. Partners were available in various suites in a “speed dating” type of format, 45 minutes in length, where security consultants learned about their solutions as well as got their questions answered.

A consultant roundtable took place, in which hot topics were discussed, one of which was the adoption of Open Supervised Device Protocol (OSDP), a communication standard developed by the Security Industry Association (SIA) to improve interoperability among access control and security devices. Security consultants were also concerned with specifying manufacturer’s certifications, asking if companies could possibly add certification numbers or some sort of identification so each certification is easier to “spec.”

As the event concluded and I began to reflect, one of the most valuable takeaways from the whole conference emerged. Steve Wagner, president of Open Options, said the following during a speed dating session: “Everyone employed with Open Options is empowered to make decisions on behalf of customers; if a mistake is made with any such decisions, it will be to the benefit of the client.” This customer/client-first mentality, in my opinion, is a big piece of the pie that security companies must incorporate into their culture for maximum success.

The dispute follows recent reporting by Business Insider, CNN Business and many other publications that have highlighted the undisclosed, on-board microphone discovered in Google’s Nest Guard Security Device — raising serious privacy concerns among consumers.

Since audio recording includes privacy and legal complexities, it’s not extremely common in residential installations, the associations noted, pointing out that security professionals and integrators consult with customers and ensure all federal and state laws are abided by.

“Adding audio surveillance can certainly make for a more robust system,” ESA President Chris Mosley said in a prepared statement. “We’re seeing exciting advancements in the audio surveillance category, such as acoustic sensors and microphones that can help us detect gunfire or when voices become elevated that could indicate potential violence. However, sweeping statements to infer that residential systems commonly have this feature are simply not accurate.”

Richard Brent, CEO, Louroe Electronics, an ESA Member company and 40-year-old manufacturer of audio-based technologies, agrees, noting, “Sound-based technology in security systems is common in law enforcement, institutional, and smart city installations. However, the use of microphones for surveillance in residences is extremely rare on account of heightened expectations of privacy.”

According to both associations, adding microphones and audio capabilities to security systems adds another level of precaution that must be taken to install the system in a way that protects the privacy of the consumer.

“Security systems are now an important part of the customer home experience in that we can integrate with audio assistance,” TMA President Ivan Spector said. “However professionally installed and monitored security systems are not designed to record data and conversations unbeknownst to our customers.”

Professionally installed systems have the backing of technology experts who know the full capability of the system and its components and can appropriately safeguard these systems, so as not to compromise privacy.

This week, I’m spending time in the Country Music Capital of the World, Nashville, hanging out with everyone at MIPS 2019, a conference organized by Milestone. After quite an eventful experience at the DFW airport — maintenance issues, delays and arriving a bit late to the conference — I’m happy to report it was all worth it!

Yesterday was jam-packed full of amazing speakers, new announcements from Milestone and their partners, and of course, hand claps and “yee-haws” to celebrate. Today promises even more highly beneficial content and a one-on-one interview to discuss the new Milestone Marketplace, an online experience to explore proven applications, hardware, and services that work with XProtect; connect with technology partners; and find the solution to deploy.

Be on the lookout for my MIPS 2019 roundup piece and follow me on Twitter @SSN_Ginger for live updates. To get caught up on yesterday’s Tweets, search with SSN’s new hashtag #SSNTalks.

TechSec Solutions, which wrapped up this week here in Delray Beach, Fla., brought together thought leaders from across all areas of the security industry to discuss the current state of the industry, key trends and technologies impacting and shaping security, and what the more successful companies are doing to stay relevant and profitable.

PSA’s Bill Bozeman … SIA’s Don Erickson … Securitas’ Jim Henry … ESIConvergent’s Pierre Bourgeix … DICE Corp’s Cliff Dice — the list of speakers at this year’s event represented the who’s who of security. Together with many other great speakers they provided a stellar day and a half of learning and networking. Moving outside the education room, attendees were able to check out some of the newest technology and services from this year’s sponsors, which included DICE Corp., Hikvision, ISC West, Lifesafety Power, Secure Utility and simPRO.

In addition to the incredible lineup of speakers and sponsors, the “20 under 40” award reception on the evening of day one provided a great capper to a tremendous day that included an “Integrator State of the Union” from Bozeman, a killer session from Bourgeix that featured Peter Rung from NCODED Communications and Samuel Trotman from KLJ, a consulting firm. Gretchen Gordon from Braveheart Sales Performance was another highlight on day one, as she tackled one of the greatest challenges for everyone in security today — finding, hiring, training AND retaining good people.

Day Two started with the highly anticipated Security Mega Panel featuring Bozeman, Erickson, ESA CEO Merlin Guilbeau and Michael Gips from ASIS International. The session exceeded expectations, as this group that has more than 100 combined years of experience in the industry riffed on the key issues, challenges and opportunities facing the industry today.

The second day also featured former “20 under 40” winner Rob Simopoulos, co-founder of Defendify, whose presentation on the importance of cybersecurity struck a nice balance between showing the audience the real threats that are out there (and many times in a humorous way), while providing tangible solutions and strategies to build a better “cyber posture.”

Closing out the conference was the session, Protecting Critical Infrastructure, which featured two of this year’s “20 under 40” end user winners — Colby Meshey, Deputy Director, Security Services, Pentagon Force Protection Agency and Kevin Didden, Senior Manager, Security Programs and Administration, MTA Bridges and Tunnels — as well as Meshey’s colleague James Ell, Electronic Security Services Branch Chief, Pentagon Force Protection Agency, and Joe Morgan, Business Development Manager for Critical Infrastructure, Axis Communications. Moderator Mike Lavway, Senior Manager, Enterprise Security Risk Group (eSRG), Aronson Security Group (ASG), was able to cover a lot of ground with this talented group, looking at specific examples from each on how they are using new technologies and strategies to improve security.

Many of the conversations sparked within the sessions spilled out into the exhibit room and lunches, and audience participation added some great energy to the sessions and discussions.

Getting back to the “20 under 40” reception. The fun-filled event, which was sponsored by SIA, brought 10 of our winners together by the pool to receive their award in person, network with their peers and celebrate a well-earned recognition as one of the rising stars in the industry.

Speaking of “rising stars,” SIA sponsored the event because they understand how important it is to recognize and support young professionals in the industry as they become the thought leaders of tomorrow. SIA’s RISE program does just that and there is great synergy between the “20 under 40” and RISE program’s goals. SIA also just announced its AcceleRISE conference, which is Aug. 16-18 in Minneapolis, Minn.

Keep checking back to the website for more coverage from TechSec 2019 — including some live video footage from sessions — as well as more information on the big announcement that Cloud+ will be joining TechSec Solutions in early 2020! Stay tuned for more exciting news about that two great shows finally coming together.

The success of smart home assistants such as Amazon Alexa has spurred the growth of smart speakers within the home, as voice control in the home seems to be a trend that is not going away any time soon.

In fact, the adoption of these devices increased by 800 percent from 2016 to 2018, reaching nearly one-third of U.S. broadband households by the end of 2018, according to research by Parks Associates.

In the firm’s “Strategies for Integrating Voice in the Smart Home,” report, it estimates U.S. households will buy more than 64 million smart speakers with voice assistants in 2022. The research profiles key technology partners that can help companies integrate voice and evaluates different strategies for implementation.

“Voice is emerging as a key complement to smart home device adoption and ownership, as it provides a simple method of interaction and creates opportunities for a centralized user interface and interoperability among multiple devices,” Dina Abdelrazik, research analyst, Parks Associates, said in the announcement. “The next step will be integration of voice among multiple device categories, which will help to alleviate smart home fragmentation.”

Use of voice in conjunction with smart home devices is increasing. The report finds 21 percent of smart homeowners have used voice to turn their devices on/off, while 18 percent have used voice to check a device’s status. With voice popularity and use cases expanding, device makers and service providers are looking to capitalize on the current market opportunity by integrating a voice experience with their current offerings. The first decision a company must make before doing so is to decide whether to create its own proprietary solution or to integrate with a readily available solution.

“Major tech giants have entered the voice-first market providing companies with the opportunity to leverage their voice-based solutions, with Amazon and Google leading the market,” Abdelrazik said. “They have made it easier for companies to enable voice-based solutions while creating competition for consumer mindshare, with Apple, Samsung and Harman Kardon promoting their own solutions in an increasingly crowded market. This diversity gives companies more choices when considering partnerships or whether to develop their own proprietary in-house solution.”

Parks Associates will host CONNECTIONS: The Premier Connected Home Conference on May 21-23, 2019, in San Francisco, where analysts and IoT executives will examine the impact of voice along with other solutions in shaping demand, adoption, and new business strategies within the smart home ecosystem.

The love of smart speakers is permeating the world, as more and more people are introducing these devices into their homes for various reasons—to listen to their favorite tunes, search for real-time and factual information, listen to news, chat with the voice assistant for fun (I mean, it’s pretty cool to play trivia with Alexa!), and use alarms and timers, and more. So, to do all these activities, what are people looking for in a smart speaker?

After surveying more than 13 percent of Internet users with smart speakers in their households in November 2018, from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, IHS Markit found:

• 27 percent said the most important feature is “integration with services and devices;• 25 percent said a “questions and answers” feature; and• 24 percent indicated “sound quality.”

Of the respondents with access to smart speakers powered by Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, they were more likely to rate integration as the most important feature because they positioned their digital assistants as smart home hubs, primarily because both platforms leverage their own entertainment offerings, such as audiobooks and streaming music.

Fateha Begum, associate director, IHS Markit, revealed the following information from the survey in an announcement:

• Sound quality and integration is usually equally important among consumers, especially for those with Bose, JBL, Link, Panasonic, Sony and other traditional audio brands.• Smart speaker households in India and Brazil selected sound quality as the most important factor.• Amazon Echo and Google Home owners said answering questions was top of their list.

Across all markets surveyed, it seems Amazon Echo is making a bigger splash among households. Those owning Amazon Echo devices were more likely to have multiple devices and on average, 21 percent accessed two Echo speakers with 15 percent accessing three or more speakers. Only 15 percent of Google Home owners had access to two Google speakers with an additional 15 percent accessing three or more speakers.

In my opinion, the key takeaway from this survey was stated by Maria Rua Aguete, executive director, IHS Markit, “Operators now understand the importance of having their own digital assistants, to maintain and control the customer experience and network usage.”

As the semi-proud new owner of an Echo Show, 2nd Generation, I enjoy Alexa for the little things—playing games and listening to music, and I appreciate the concept and lure of smart speakers and AI, but for me, and maybe it’s my undeniably strong Texas accent, Alexa just doesn’t understand me!

The countdown to SIA’s new conference acceleRISE has begun with plans for security leaders to share ideas and inspire tomorrow’s up and coming young security professionals via coaching, business skill development and networking. This event is to take place August 14-16 at the Radisson Blu in downtown, Minneapolis.

Having never been to Minnesota and being the extreme foodie that I am, I did a little research and discovered a meat-centric American grill that I would totally check out — Butcher & The Boar. Glancing at their menu, offerings include:

“Finding and keeping qualified talent is the number one issue facing SIA members and the industry,” CEO of SIA, Don Erickson, said in a press release. “AcceleRISE will provide young security professionals with a compelling learning experience, ignite new thinking, strengthen leadership skills, sharpen business acumen and ultimately propel attendees forward as stronger contributors to their employers’ success.”

With topics such as introducing the security industry ecosystem, project and time management, inspiring yourself to innovate and more, attendees will walk away with:

“Today’s young professionals bring a unique perspective to the workplace,” Erickson told SSN. “They are creative and critical thinkers who will become stronger contributors to engineering, sales, marketing, customer service and project management teams by having access to the compelling experience offered through AcceleRISE. Designed by young professionals with input from managers, this event will complement the quality educating and training offered by employers today.”

Security Systems News is honored to be a participant in this event to continue to engage with the young security professionals of tomorrow.

You don’t have to look too hard to find a sobering example of cybercrime, as it's as pervasive as ever these days, even on the national level with recent reports that cyber criminals have access to critical infrastructure such as our national power grids and gas lines. The good news, though, is technology may be our best weapon against these invisible criminals.

In fact, the use of big data and blockchain technologies are key to fighting cybercrime, according to a new study from Frost & Sullivan that looks at how effective machine learning is in aiding early detection of cyber anomalies, and how good blockchain is at creating a trustworthy network between endpoints.

Frost and Sullivan noted that the rise of the Internet of Things has opened up numerous points of vulnerabilities, compelling cybersecurity companies, especially startups, to develop innovative solutions to protect enterprises from emerging threats. As cybercrime becomes more sophisticated and even a method of warfare, the research firm found, technologies such as machine learning, big data, and blockchain will become prominent.

"Deploying Big Data solutions is essential for companies to expand the scope of cybersecurity solutions beyond detection and mitigation of threats,” Hiten Shah, research analyst, TechVision, said in the announcement of the findings. "This technology can proactively predict breaches before they happen, as well as uncover patterns from past incidents to support policy decisions."

The study, Envisioning the Next-Generation Cybersecurity Practices, presents an overview of cybersecurity in enterprises and analyzes the drivers and challenges to the adoption of best practices in cybersecurity. It also covers the technologies impacting the future of cybersecurity and the main purchase factors.

"Startups need to make their products integrable with existing products and solutions as well as bundle their solutions with market-leading solutions from well-established companies," noted Shah. "Such collaborations will lead to mergers and acquisitions, ultimately enabling companies to provide more advanced solutions."

Technologies that are likely to find the most application opportunities include:

• Big Data: It enables automated risk management and predictive analytics. Its adoption will be mostly driven by the need to identify usage and behavioral patterns to help security operations spot anomalies.• Machine Learning: It allows security teams to prioritize corrective actions and automate real-time analysis of multiple variables. Using the vast pools of data collected by companies, machine-learning algorithms can zero in on the root cause of the attack and fix detected anomalies in the network.• Blockchain: The data stored on blockchain cannot be manipulated or erased by design. The tractability of activities performed on blockchain is integral to establishing a trustworthy network between endpoints. Furthermore, the decentralized nature of blockchain greatly increases the cost of breaching blockchain-based networks, which discourages hackers.

Two major security industry accolades—the Sara E. Jackson Memorial award and the Morris F. Weinstock Person of the Year award—were given out at the Electronic Security Association’s Leadership Summit, Jan. 28-31, in Austin, Texas.

ESA President Chris Mosley presented Don Childers of Security Central with the Sara E. Jackson Memorial Award during the first Main Stage session at Leadership Summit. Childers gave a heartfelt speech thanking the many people he has worked with during his years in the industry. Click here to see the video of the presentation. This award is sponsored by Resideo.

Mosley also presented Angela White, immediate past president of ESA, with the 2019 Morris F. Weinstock Person of the Year Award. White thanked the people who nominated her and the past recipients of the award, as well as everyone who she has worked with along the way to give her this opportunity. Click here to see the video of the award presentation. This award is sponsored by Interlogix.

Each year, executives from the electronic security and life safety industry gather for the ESA Leadership Summit network with each other, learn keys to success from other industries, and develop their leadership skillset.

Jillian Bateman, ESA chief development officer, told Security Systems News, “We try to be a very, very efficient leadership event—one that is strategic about the interactions we foster.”

In addition to interactive sessions that delved into key industry topics and issues of the day, the summit also featured the ESA’s Rising Leaders Forum and an online networking portal to help facilitate beneficial meetings, which was fully launched for the first time this year.

“It’s able to help pair folks on interests,” Bateman said. “Whether an attendee wants to meet with another attendee on, maybe, some issues that they're having with technicians that they can brainstorm and talk through, or, if they want to meet a vendor on a new product that they have, they can do that as well.”

Being a part of the security industry day in and day out affords me some very unique conversations and learning opportunities about security projects. Take the city of Detroit, their Project Green Light and Guardian Alarm, as an example.

For those of you who may not know or need a refresher, Project Green Light started in 2016 when the Detroit Police Department (DPD) partnered with eight gas stations installed with real-time cameras, connected directly to police headquarters. This was the beginning of a different type of partnership, one that would take the city, businesses and community on an unprecedented security journey.

“Project Green Light is a really unique project; it is a very progressive approach to video verification of real time emergency events,” Jason Tague, director of business development, explained. “The way it operates, when a 911 call is received from a Project Green Light location the Detroit Police Department has the opportunity to verify emergency action in real time, and once verified, they are able to direct the nearest police officer or first responder to that location because of video verification.”

Businesses invest in systems under the agreement that DPD will have access to video cameras to help better protect them, just in case. Businesses are literally “marked” as Project Green Light participants.

“There’s a select signage package that DPD has trademarked – a logo, along with the name – and program participants have requirements to post a certain amount of signage on their place of business,” Tague said. “Also, there is a green strobe light outside of each business – a ‘beacon’ if you will – that flashes. This creates awareness in communities that it is a place that’s connected … a place that’s safe.”

The vendor approval process is rigorous, as DPD is very selective about the vendors they partner with, putting great emphasis on standards, policies and procedures in terms of what is expected of and from a vendor. Tague believes Guardian was chosen based on their 85-year tenure in the security industry, being a well-known brand in Michigan, having a broad, established customer base and offering a full-service solution. Perhaps this is why Guardian was chosen for the community’s beloved Don Bosco Hall, a private, non-profit agency that provides services to enhance quality of life for the community’s youth and their families.

“We were honored to be chosen to work with the community center [Don Bosco Hall],” said Tague, “because it was a complex environment and we had to be very mindful of the environment during installation.”

During the installation, things didn’t stop moving at the hall. Children were changing activity/classrooms, even when cable was being pulled in an antiquated building.

“It’s [pulling cable] is a very daunting task,” Tague said, “but we navigated that gauntlet quite well and were very mindful of the environment. The children took interest in what we were doing, so it was a little bit of an educational process along the way.”

Ultimately, Tague said that it’s nice to know the playground and the outer corridor where the children go out to play offers a sense of security beyond the actual walls of the building itself.

One of the questions I enjoy asking security professionals is “what else would you like my readers to know?” about any topic of discussion. In this case, Tague concluded with a solid piece of advice that I feel all security integrators should take to heart: keep it simple.

“We make it easy for Project Green Light participants. Our team has been really great at explaining and helping people understand the process step-by-step, so there are no surprises and everything goes according to plan … everything.”

So, how do you and your team keep things simple for your customers? Excited for your replies!